Your Pie Is Bigger Than My Pie

In an earlier article, I talked about a view of wealth that seemingly few people have. Instead of viewing wealth as one huge pie that we must cut up and share, we should see it as a whole bunch of pies–one for each person. Each person should be free to make his or her pie as big as he or she can.

The problem that some people have with this view is that some people will end up with a bigger pie, and some people will end up with a smaller pie.

First, I want to point out that in the more common view–the view that each of us can only hope for a piece of the pie–there are still different sized pieces. Some people have a bigger piece, while others have a smaller piece. This is what people often refer to as “uneven distribution of wealth.” The term distribution is unfortunate, because it suggests that somebody owns this massive wealth pie and they cut it up and pass it around on plates to everybody. That somebody, of course, is the government. People seem to think that the government owns all the wealth and that one of government’s jobs is to spread the wealth among the people–to make sure that everyone gets his or her fair share.

But the government doesn’t make sure that everyone gets a fair share. If anyone can point to any government redistribution plan that ends with everyone having the same amount of wealth, please do so. It has never happened, and I do not believe that it ever will happen, and the reason is simple. People are naturally self-centered and greedy. The people who distribute the pie will always cut themselves a nice big piece, and they will also cut their friends nice big pieces.

Besides, even if the government actually gathered all the existing wealth and made sure that everybody got exactly the same amount of it, within a few years, some people would have less and some people would have more. Think about how some people lose huge sums of money that they inherited or won while other people invest tiny sums of money and eventually have great fortunes. Some people are just more clever, more talented, more energetic, and more ambitious.

Therefore, some people will have more wealth than others, whether the government redistributes the wealth or whether the government stays out of the redistribution business. Some people will start with more, while other people will start with less. Some people will gain from what they started with, while other people will lose part or all of what they started with.

You cannot avoid the reality that some people will have bigger pies than others.

“But that’s not fair!” some people cry.

Actually, it is only unfair for some people to have more wealth, to have a bigger pie, if they get it by stealing or cheating or lying. It is also unfair if they got a bigger pie by having their friends in the government write laws that give them an unfair advantage over others. Those things are truly unfair.

If somebody happens to get a bigger pie by being smarter, it is completely fair. It might be annoying or disappointing to people with a smaller pie, but it is completely fair.

If somebody happens to get a bigger pie by working harder, it is completely fair. It might provoke envy, but it is completely fair.

Before reaching the end, I know that some people will raise one very tricky objection. Some people are just not naturally smart. Some people are not naturally energetic or ambitious. Some people are born with physical or mental handicaps. Those things are all true, but who are you going to blame? If I think of a great idea for a new business while my neighbor is only smart enough to work as an employee of somebody else’s business, it’s not my fault. I should not be penalized for being smarter. If I am able to have a career in sports, but my paraplegic neighbor is not, it’s not my fault. I didn’t make him that way. I should not be held back in some twisted attempt to make things “fair.”

In fact, how can I have the means to help my neighbors if somebody takes away my wealth out of a warped sense of fairness? Let me keep my pie, and then I can use some of it to do kind things for the people around me with a smaller pie.

“But some people won’t share!” is usually the next objection I hear.

That’s true, but what is the remedy? Should we steal some of their pie in order to force them to share? That’s not really sharing, because true sharing is done voluntarily and cheerfully.

If people won’t share some of their pie, all that the rest of us can do is carry on with our own pies. We can teach and preach the virtue of sharing, and it might get through. But the one thing that we cannot do, if we are decent people, is steal from those we envy for having bigger pies.

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Written by

A husband, father, missionary, teacher, pianist, amateur writer, and family historian. He earned a B. A. and an M. A. in English, but don't hold that against him. He turned from conservatism to voluntaryism over the course of several years of intense thought and Bible study.

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